And You Thought You Hated Family Reunions
by LaylanatorXVII
Summary: It is perhaps appropriate that the first entity to exist was named Chaos. That's sure what followed. Basically a humorous rundown of the gods and their origins. Prepare for borderline crack, Zeus bashing, random tangents and the author pointing out plot holes galore. Rated T for language. Reviews are appropriately sobbed over. (Should I list this under Parody? I'm not sure...)


_A/N:_ _Once upon a time, there was a girl named Layla. She had a Study Hall. And in this magical place called "Study Hall" there was literally nothing to do but sit at a computer and type whatever came to mind. Eventually this resulted in several retold myths that she didn't ever think anyone would read. Then this girl realized that she could create an EMAIL ACCOUNT and register on FANFICTION. And thus she posted the half-insensate works she dares to call literature._

 _So. Basically, this is just a rundown of the history and origins of the gods. When I wrote it I never thought anyone would really see it, but what the hell. I figured since I have it I might as well post it, eh?_

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 _ **WARNINGS:**_ _I have a problem with language. Sorry. The extremely sensitive might want to seek life elsewhere. Also, mentions of…things…but nothing graphic._

 _Please be kind. I adore reviews. Constructive criticism is treasured._

 _Flames will be used to fuel the fire that burns in my soul for Hades, the most misunderstood god of them all._

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 _ **Disclaimer:**_ _Again, I ponder whether this is strictly necessary, since I am using characters and scenarios that no one person on Earth actually owns…Hmm. But, in any case, I do not own Greek mythology. And if there happens to be anyone left on Earth who actually worships these deities…Holy crap, I am sorry for what I did to your gods. *cringe*_

 _Oh, and there is a line in here that I kinda-sorta-maybe stole/borrowed from the Heroes of Olympus novels by Rick Reordan. Anyone who can spot it gets brownie points (but no actual brownies, sorry.) All rights go to Rick. Sadly, I do not own them. If I did, Nico and Will would have had more scenes together (And it probably would have been a much more risqué book.)_

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Once upon a time, there was a dude named Chaos. And he was pretty much the only thing in existence. With no television, Internet, or, indeed, thumbs to twiddle, I can imagine it was rather boring, and even lonely.

So what does he decide to do? He decides to have kids. How does he do this without a female? I have no idea. However, these are his bouncing bundles of joy:

Gaea, the goddess of the earth. Well, I say goddess of the earth, really, she WAS the earth. As in the stuff under your feet right now. Unless you're in space. But why the hell would you be in space? Indeed, why the hell would you be reading this if you were on earth, even? BUT WHATEVER.

Uranus, the god of the sky. Yet again, this dude is actually the physical embodiment of the sky. Which will, of course, raise questions as to how _he_ conceived children, but I honestly do not want to think too hard about that.

Tarturus, the god of the pit. What is the Pit, exactly? Read Greek mythology, you bums. Just kidding. The Pit is sort of the Greek equivalent of the Christian Hell. Basically, it was a huge pit under the surface of the Earth. Some myths describe it to be sort of a reverse sky. The gods never went here. It was the ultimate 'hood of the Greek world.

And now for his, ahem, darker children. There was Erebus, the darkness that covered the Underworld. By "Underworld" I don't know if it means "Hades' underworld" or Tarturus. It doesn't really matter anyway. This dude spawns some evil babies and then drops out of existence, because he never appears in any other myths that I can recall.

And then there was Nix, or Night. Either works, take your pick. She was the embodiment of the darkness that covered the Earth. So when you go out tonight, just remember this story, and become extremely weirded out… Mwahahaha!

And now, for the cruelest of all Chaos' children: the one that everybody looks for and few have found. The one that will chew you up, spit you out and dance the Macarena on your mangled remains: Eros, or love. I don't remember this dude ever popping up again after this. At least, not in his physical entity. He, of course, ruins the lives of multiple people in Greek mythology, like Psyche, Hercules, and, oh yes, Zephyrus and Hyakinthos especially. Read THAT story, poppets, and you will not doubt that this dude is pure _evil._

Oh, yes. These were Chaos beautiful babies, here to raise hell and havoc on everything.

And like people (and huge embodiments of ground, and sky, and pits) tend to do, they had children of their own.

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Now, my darlings, I feel the need to address something rather serious. Once upon a time, incest was okay. It was all cool, and not a big deal at all. And considering that there wasn't exactly anybody else to reproduce with, these guys paired up with their siblings. Feel free to shudder.

Now, Erebus and Night, being the darker two of the group, were always close.

A little _too_ close, perhaps.

And so, that's how Hemera, the Day, and Phos, the Light, were born. Also, I feel the need to question how exactly the two embodiments of darkness created Day and Light out of the mixture of their genes. They must have been very disappointed. Sort of like if two Goth people got together and both of their children turned out to join the Girl Scouts and become captain of the cheer squad when they grew up.

But, as they say, the third time's the charm, and by religious use of the brand new "Evil Pill" they sold down at the pharmacy, they managed to create some children that would follow more in their footsteps instead of running around handing out flowers and free hugs.

And so the quintuplet group from Hell arrived. These little angels were christened Doom, Death, Misery, Deceit, and Discord. (Of course, when these guys hit the teen years, I'm sure Erebus and Nix were probably rather wishing they were more like their older siblings.)

And then comes Deceit, with her brood. She gave birth to this cheery bunch: Murder, Slaughter, Battle and Crime. (Seriously, how did these parents survive the childhoods of their children? But then again, this was Deceit… for all we know her children should have been named Salvation, Mercy, Armistice and Justice.)

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Admittedly, these children are not the most commonly known. Usually, if people can recall any, they recall these next two: Gaea and Uranus and their kids.

So, Gaea and Uranus obviously at some point overcame their physical difficulties and produced children. And it is at that point that the genetic deformities predominant in incestuous children arise.

Here's what I mean: Gaea and Uranus's first three children all came out with one hundred hands and faces each. Imagine herding those kids through the grocery store. Human children are difficult when they grab stuff off the shelves, but they only have two hands. Imagine the frustration with these dudes.

The next three were Cyclopes, which for all ya'll who have been living under a rock means that instead of two eyes, they had one in the center of their forehead. Generally, these dudes were about ten feet tall as well. And these guys actually have names (Well, the 100 Hands do too, but I'm too lazy to Google it right now. Sorry, 100 Hands.) : Brontes, Sterops, and Arges. Fun Fact: Arges means "shining guy". Try living that one down.

And then there were the most famous: the Titans. There were like, twelve of these, six girls and six boys to the best of my knowledge. And I am vastly too lazy to look them all up at this point. So I will only focus on the two that are important to this story.

You see, there was Kronos, the Titan of Time and the Ages, and his sister-wife, Rhea, the Titaness of fertility, motherhood, and generation. They had the gods. BUT FIRST OF ALL…

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Uranus was not a good father. When his first children turned out… wonky…he threw them into Tarturus simply because they were ugly. And Gaea was _pissed._

And so, when her brilliant (and apparently aesthetically pleasing) children the Titans were born, she devised a little plan.

She called Kronos to her, and gave him his father's scythe. Then she said,

"Okay, I'll distract your father. When he's distracted, you come up behind him and hack him to pieces!"

And Kronos is just like, "OKAY!"

And so that's what happened. Kronos cut his father into pieces (which makes me question: if Kronos killed Uranus, which was the sky, what the hell is that thing hanging over our heads right now? Riddle me that!) and threw his body in the ocean. And from his…gonads…there formed Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, love and desire. If you don't know what gonads are, ask either your mama or your science teacher, cause no luck here.

Later, Gaea shacked up with her other brother, Tarturus, and gave birth to a race of giants, but that's a tale for another time. For the reason I have gone on this 5-page-long venture of who begot who in Greek mythology is so I could tell you what happened to Kronos after he did away with dear old dad.

So Kronos shacked up with his sister, Rhea. And he somehow heard a prophecy or something that said that he was going to be overthrown by his children in the same manner he overthrew his. In other words, KARMA.

BUT we all know men are always thinking about one thing and one thing only…so Rhea ended up getting knocked up anyway.

And so Kronos is all like, "HOLY CRAP! WHAT DO I DO?!" and thus, in his panic, decides to solve his problems in the way that most men try to solve their problems: by eating.

More specifically, by eating the baby. (Ha, I just thought of this: You know how people look at babies and say they want to "Eat them up" or they're "Cute enough to eat"? HAHAHAHAHAHA)

Yep. For some reason, Kronos decides that cannibalism will solve his problems. But, never fear, for these children are GODS. They will not be digested. They will, however, probably be scarred for life.

And since Kronos is, again, a man, Rhea just keeps popping them out. And Kronos KEEPS EATING THEM. WHAT. . IS HE NOT FAT YET? HOW DOES HE MOVE? By the time Rhea gets her act together, Daddy-O has consumed and is carrying around five, count 'em, FIVE gods and goddesses in his stomach. AND HE IS STILL WALKING AROUND AND KNOCKING UP HIS WIFE. WHAAAAAAT?

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Anyway, Rhea eventually decides that she can't stand it when the kids beat on their dad's stomach and yell "LET US OUT" any longer (cause they always pick, like, two in the morning to start yelling) and decides to hatch a little plan.

So when Zeus is born, she gives him to her handmaidens and they hide him. And Rhea gives her husband in place of a baby:

A rock. Now, I will be the first to tell you that men are idiots. But I think that even Kronos should have realized that what that woman gave him was NOT a baby. Maybe he was drunk. (And hey, on that note, do you reckon that when he gets drunk, the gods and goddesses in his stomach do, too? Food for thought.)

BUT HE FALLS FOR IT. AND HE EATS IT. And the dudes in his stomach were probably like, "…why did he eat a rock?"

So Zeus is raised on the sly by Rhea and her handmaidens. And I guess Kronos finally realized what causes babies, cause no other little gods and goddesses came along. Or Rhea just sentenced him to the couch, either one.

And so, when Zeus got old enough, Rhea decides: _it is time._ DRAMA ALERT!

Rhea gives Zeus Kronos' scythe, which (IRONY) he killed _his_ father with, and sends him off to save his brothers and sisters and kill daddy dear.

So, Zeus, under disguise I guess, feeds his father a mixture of mustard and wine. Which is like a medieval form of Ipecac, because Kronos promptly yaks up the other Olympians. I can't really decide what would be worse, puking up five fully grown people, or being puked up.

And lo and behold, here stand Hades, Poseidon, Hestia, Demeter and Hera, grown adults and miraculously unharmed by stomach acid that they say can dissolve a nail but WHO CARES?

And they basically help baby brother cut Kronos into little bite-size pieces.

But Kronos does not get the benefit of being thrown in the ocean to produce a SMOKING HOT love goddess as a last act, and instead gets thrown into Tarturus, or the Pit. Which also happens to be his uncle. Weird.

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So, the gods and goddesses end up defeating the Titans and taking over power of the universe. And then they start divvying out the power.

Zeus, although he is the baby of the family, ends up being ruler of the gods and god of the sky, and shacks up with Hera, his sister and goddess of marriage and motherhood, and having Ares and Hephaestus. Then, of course, being a hopeless womanizer, he has the twins Artemis and Apollo out of wedlock. Then he has Athena, all on his own. Go figure.

Then Poseidon, more fitting to be ruler, but TO HELL WITH COMMON SENSE becomes god of the sea.

Hestia, poor, forgotten Hestia, becomes goddess of the hearth (which basically means "the home"). Never heard of her, have you? NO, because she, being the sweet, sweet soul she is, gives up her throne so that Dionysus, Zeus's OTHER ILLEGITIMATE LOVE-CHILD, can have a throne, and thus be the god of wine (cough, cough, he's an alcoholic, cough, cough).

Demeter becomes the goddess of the harvest and ends up having a kid named Persephone with Zeus (GASP, ZEUS BEING UNFAITHFUL? WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED?), who ends up getting married to Hades.

Hades, oh, this guy. This guy gets the shaft. He gets assigned to the Underworld and dead people and DOESN'T EVEN GET A THRONE ON OLYMPUS AND IS FORBIDDEN TO GO THERE UNLESS CALLED. WHAT THE HELL, PEOPLE. WHAT THE HELL. No wonder he kidnapped Persephone. The man had no one ELSE to talk to.

And thus, the gods and goddesses go on and on to have their own children to wreak all kinds of hell on earth. Especially Zeus, the unfaithful bastard…

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 _Thanks for reading! And remember the next time you go to a family reunion: it could always be worse. Always. Please review. (I am review starved; my Norse mythology fic has only ONE review, and that was my little sister on my other account.)_

 _I really hope my line breaks show up. *crosses fingers*_

 ** _SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION...okay, maybe a little shame:_** _If, by any chance, you are also a fan of Norse mythology, I have written three stories for that fandom that are getting zero love. *sad face* I don't know if people just don't like them, or whatever. But give them a read if you're interested. :-)_


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